Superb resource to study human brain development, out in @nature.com 🧪🧠 An atlas showing how patterns of functional connectivity between brain regions change from birth to old age “Functional hierarchy of the human neocortex across the lifespan” www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Last week in Minnesota, I watched ordinary people risk their lives to protect their neighbors. In the process, they not only won a significant—though not final—victory against authoritarianism, they proved virtually every MAGA social theory wrong. (gift link) www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

Hey Martians, did I mention we now also have a video of epic Phobos passing over a Martian dust storm near Pavonis Mons? 🌪️🌋🥔 Video & full info: flic.kr/p/2rNN8wk Credit: ESA/DLR/FUBerlin/AndreaLuck CC BY @esa.int Mars Express HRSC 300 MP Photo quoted below Easy zoom: easyzoom.com/image/674026

Time for another what-is-AI thread, because there’s a lot of confusion, seeded on purpose by shitty vulture capitalists trying to sell stuff. AI is a legit branch of computer science with a LOT of different approaches & addressing MANY different types of problems.

Glutamate is the primary molecule that neurons use to communicate with each other. Previously, scientists have mostly recorded when neurons fire output signals, but now with a new glutamate indicator, they can record the many inputs that causes cells to fire. 🧵 #neuroskyence

Paleontology rocks!

I think the funniest thing to me is that the people who are working to create an Artificial General Intelligence is that it’s a bunch of libertarians who have never realised that what makes us smart as humans is community, society, empathy. The things they find an anathema.

“What archaeology asks of everyone is an openness to alternate worlds. An understanding that your society, with its ways of working, worshipping, learning, loving—even knowing a dog—is just one permutation of endless human and beyond human possibilities.” www.sapiens.org/archaeology/...

This is an excellent think piece on the threat of AI-enabled techno-authoritarianism. 80000hours.org/problem-prof...

As was true with the translators I heard from in an earlier edition, copywriters never felt that they were being replaced because the AI's work was better. It was almost always worse. It was simply cheaper and faster, and deemed "good enough" by clients.

I'm really pleased that my first coauthored article of 2026 is out. With some amazing folks @marckissel.bsky.social @anthrofuentes.bsky.social we think through a synthesis of behavioral ecology, emotional cognition, and archaeology. www.johnhawks.net/p/bringing-e...

Researchers have used Japan’s Fugaku supercomputer to build a virtual mouse cortex. The model lets scientists run “virtual experiments” on diseases such as epilepsy or Alzheimer’s, tracing how disruptions spread, and testing interventions. buff.ly/JqiLr9q #ShareGoodNewsToo

Guilty.

At no point has this been about anything ohter than these people being very upset that they aren't the main character, and the whole world does not in fact revolve around them. Now they want to be absolved of their misdeeds, and to be told it's not their fault. Because it's always about them.

This sounds reasonable but is 100% wrong. Whether you or agree or disagree with a study is completely immaterial. What matters is whether the study was conducted properly and generates valid results. And it's impolitic to say but it's true: you have to have some level of expertise to judge that.

spoke with the executive director of my local food bank today and got this really incredible line: "if you donate 1 can of green beans, we can give away 1 can of green beans. but if you donate a dollar, we can give away 6 cans of green beans"

Prominent Afrikaners are pushing back after President Trump announced no U.S. officials will attend the G20 in Johannesburg, rejecting his claims of "white persecution" in South Africa as false and politically driven.

When a chatbot gets something wrong, it’s not because it made an error. It’s because on that roll of the dice, it happened to string together a group of words that, when read by a human, represents something false. But it was working entirely as designed. It was supposed to make a sentence & it did.

Chatbots — LLMs — do not know facts and are not designed to be able to accurately answer factual questions. They are designed to find and mimic patterns of words, probabilistically. When they’re “right” it’s because correct things are often written down, so those patterns are frequent. That’s all.

This video from Portland is a metaphor for what is going on in America. ICE trying so hard to get Americans to cross a line and if they don't, dragging them across the line and violently attacking.

IU may be playing Michigan State for Homecoming but the Purdue Exponent and the Indiana Daily Student have won the game.

Sorry today to hear about the death of Drew Struzan. He was probably the artist that was most globally well-known without most people knowing his name. He invented an entire style of art, which just like the movies themselves, borrowed from everywhere and became part of our whole culture.

The reason why LLMs fail to play a game of chess, even though they can cite the rules from their training data, is an awesome example of what's stopping autonomous AI agents from being reliable. Great discussion between @garrykasparov.bsky.social ♟️ and @garymarcus.bsky.social 🧠 on limits of GenAI.

8 of the 10 top-ranked research institutions worldwide are in China. Only 1 is in the United States. "If this does not constitute a Sputnik moment, it is hard to imagine what would." www.nytimes.com/2025/09/08/o...

Easy test, ask an LLM what the weather was 3 months ago at your location. They will give an plausible sounding answer, which in 90% of cases will be completely wrong. Any "junior researcher" can answer that for you correctly.

A @robert_zubrin article on the Black Horse spaceplane: www.ai.mit.edu/projects/im/... It takes off on small wings and lightweight wheels with only fuel onboard, then loads up H2O2 oxidizer after aerial refueling. Switching to rocket mode at Mach 0.8 requires 8.5 km/s dV, Mach 5.5 takes 6.3 km/s.

The Democratic party "has clearly begun to string together a cohesive narrative that Trump is not a scourge of, but a protector of, the elites, and he has abandoned the working-class voters he promised to help." Better late than never. @lauren-egan.bsky.social: www.thebulwark.com/p/democrats-...

My spidey senses tell me there's a particular Left Anterior Descending Artery in Washington DC whose lumen is narrowing.

Listen closely as Carl Sagan explains how regular people can create change!

"It’s statements like these from Mr. Colbert that have rankled many rightwing fundamentalists over the years because they can’t simply claim he’s being inaccurate or even particularly judgy."

The inner ear cavity (pink) and middle ear bones (blue, green, yellow), tucked deep inside the skull of a gibbon. This three-bone chain and a series of tubes transmits sound waves to the brain

Epstein may finally be the thing that gets some Trump voters to rethink. And you can help them. Today's Triad from @jvl.bsky.social:

I first wrote about Curtis Yarvin eight or nine years ago. I was dismayed, but reassured when I looked at his recent output for this piece to find he hadn't changed much in the intervening years. What has changed is his function as an intellectual. www.thebulwark.com/p/curtis-yar...

Ed Zitron’s skepticism about the supposed genius of AI is an important corrective, I think, especially considering how tech stocks are driving the stock market. This is long, so if it’s too much, read the skeptical beginning and the end, which suggests alternative approaches.

In @politico.com, #AI expert @garymarcus.bsky.social says he is “appalled and unsurprised” by AI chatbot #Grok’s recent transgressions, and cites #CornellTech Professor @informor.bsky.social's study as an example of the dangers of #biased AI models. www.politico.com/news/magazin...

As a neuroscientist who thinks about AI and the brain, I’d be happy to debate anyone at DeepMind about the value to society of people learning to write, speak, and express ideas. AGI isn’t going to change this, and STEM—especially the basic linear algebra+compute version of STEM—won’t save us. 🧪

“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” H.L. Mencken

A friendly reminder, from a teacher: Reward the behavior you want to see. Even if it's not when you wanted it. Even if it's not as great as you were hoping for. Even if the person who's doing it metaphorically shat the bed before.

The thing about so-called generative artificial intelligence is, the intelligence isn't artificial. It's real. It's OURS. The techbros stole our intelligence (our data, our thoughts, our stories, our art) and used the software to regurgitate it and spackle it together into digital particleboard.

A truly special day in the environments where we work. They would not have been quite the same when ancient hominins were there, but here the geological contact of dolomite and shale, channeling surface water, would have been there in Homo naledi’s time.

Why is it that the science papers I think are cool or even somewhat mind blowing get little or no media attention, and the ones I think are basically derivative get the press release treatment, sometimes even Nature or Science? Just seems to keep happening lately.

“On the side that was in direct contact with the skull, the reddish-brown surface preserves the texture of the skull bones that encased it. On the other side, where the sediment surface was exposed to air inside the skull, millimeter-sized crystals of calcite sparkle.” johnhawks.net/weblog/resea...

Trump's betrayal of Ukraine is monumental for not just the horror of it. It signals that Trump wants to follow Putin's example in America, with Putin's "return" in 2012 as the obvious reference. This why we must elevate dissent visibly and relentlessly. Or we'll become Putin's Russia.

" The Russian economy is smaller than Canada's. But we are nevertheless going to trade 80 years of alliance with reliable partners that are 15, 16, 17 times bigger than Russia as an economy for an alliance with Russia." Who does that benefit except Trump, Musk, Putin & everyone who hates democracy?

"That, my friends, is a power so vast you can’t even conceive of it. And it didn’t just apply to our adversaries—it applied to our friends, too." That is the power "America First" is choosing to give up. Today's Triad from @jvl.bsky.social: www.thebulwark.com/p/america-fi...

Keep contacting your Congresspeople - Congress is being absolutely inundated with phone calls and emails. This is potentially more impactful in Red states - because they’re starting to get nervous about their re-election prospects - but either way, the volume matters.

Matthew W. Huttle, who served time for his role in the Jan. 6 attack and was pardoned by Donald Trump, was shot and killed by a Jasper County sheriff’s deputy during a traffic stop in Indiana following an altercation with the officer. Police say Huttle was armed and resisted arrest.

NEW: I spent two days with die-hard Trumpers at the inauguration & found most were friendly and nice—but totally lost in the cruel fascistic world of Trump and likely beyond reach. See the latest issue of my OUR LAND newsletter. link.motherjones.com/public/38332... Sign up at davidcorn.com.

When you see a Nazi say so.